2007-03-26

AugCog

Via MindHacks: The Augmented Cognition website. The AugCog group includes DARPA (of course), Boeing, DaimlerChrysler, and Microsoft, among many others. From the site:

A main goal of the field of Augmented Cognition (AugCog) is to research and develop technologies capable of extending, by an order of magnitude or more, the information management capacity of individuals working with 21st Century computing technologies.... A computational interaction employing such novel system concepts monitors the state of the user, through behavioral, psychophysiological and/or neurophyiological data acquired from the user in real time, and then adapts or augments the computational interface to significantly improve their performance on the task at hand.

It looks like a combination of biofeedback and advanced UI. It's sort of like if your heartrate affected your Windows machine...

When I first read about this, I thought it was more like brain enhancement, but now I'm pretty sure it's only interface enhancement. Whew. One question, though: what happens if you fall asleep at your console? Does it sense that and wake you up?

For more thorough analysis and lots of details, check out Neurophilosopy.